The National Food Authority (NFA) led by President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr. will start buying palay or unhusked rice at a maximum price of P23 per kilo amid the ongoing harvest season to help boost farmers’ income.
This after the NFA decided during its council meeting to implement a new buying price range for the procurement of dry and wet palay.
Under the new price ranges, NFA will now pay P19 per kilo to P23 per kilo for dry palay and P16 to P19 per kilo for wet palay.
Marcos, who is also the concurrent Agriculture secretary, said the new higher prices would translate to more profit for farmers since their production cost ranges between P14 to P15.
The approved buying price adjustments were lower than the proposed P20 to P25 per kilo buying price, which NFA and the Department of Agriculture (DA) said was “too high.”
NFA will be spending P15 billion to procure dry palay under its newly approved P23 per kilo procurement price. It will need to shell out P16 billion if the buying price for the food item will be pegged at P25 per kilo.
It reiterated its buffer rice stock would not be commercially sold. Instead, it will be distributed directly to poor households so as not to affect market price of the food staple.
The government is now studying replacing its cash aid for the poor with physical rice stock.
Government intervention
Farmer group Samahang Industriya ng Agrikultura (SINAG) lauded the NFA for listening to the demands of farmers for a higher buying price using its P8.5 billion budget.
“They should intervene now in areas where prevailing farm-gate prices fall below P20,” SINAG said in a statement.
Upon the recommendation of the National Economic and Development Authority (Neda), NFA will focus its procurement activities in areas “where there is excess supply relative to local demand.”
Marcos said he called for the meeting to help rice farmers cope with the “changing production and market conditions.”
“I called for the NFA Council meeting so it can look into what it can do on the procurement price for wet and dry palay due to the new situation,” Marcos said in Filipino after the NFA Council meeting.
He pointed out the high buying price together with the existing price cap for rice under Executive Order No. 39 will help “calm down” the surge in rice prices in previous weeks, which he blamed on the market manipulation by rice hoarders.
EO 39 imposed a price cap P41 per kilogram (kg) price cap for regular milled rice (RMR) and P45 per kg for well-milled rice (WMR) nationwide.
